EU to Downgrade Relations With Middle Eastern Partners

A series of North African and Middle Eastern countries are to have their relations with the EU downgraded as part of a root-and-branch reform of the union's links with neighbouring states.

Under the controversial initiative, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, and Israel will be separated from European countries in the EU's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) on the grounds that they will never be allowed to join the EU.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who is to spearhead the shake-up when Berlin takes over the EU's presidency next January, believes the EU is sending out the wrong signal by lumping continental and non-European countries together.

But critics warn that Berlin is making a grave mistake in downgrading relations with the 10 non-European members. "The problems of North Africa are just as important to the EU as those of eastern Europe. It is wrong to tell North Africa that because they are Muslims and live in sandy places, they can't be integrated," said Charles Grant, the director for the Centre for European Reform.

Berlin wants to reassure the EU's European neighbours of its friendly intentions amid a crisis in further EU enlargement. Turkey's membership talks are expected to reach a "train crash" in the autumn.

The plans would relegate Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and the Palestinian Authority to a status behind members geographically within Europe. European members would become part of a new club to encourage membership hopes. Ukraine would be the first to be admitted, followed by Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, once they have agreed action plans on negotiations covering trade and political reforms with Brussels. Moldova and Belarus may be admitted later.

Rolf Welberts, a senior official at the German foreign ministry, said that the ENP had not been a success. It had been intended to give special relations to those whose membership hopes are distant or out of the question, but has ended up linking countries as diverse as Ukraine, which has a border with the EU, with Morocco, which will never be admitted. "Ukraine should not be treated in the same way as Morocco or Algeria. We think the action plan of the ENP should be replaced with something deeper," Mr Welberts told a conference in the Black Sea resort of Yalta.

He said that Ukraine must be offered the hope of EU membership. "There is a real risk that Ukraine will turn away," he told the annual conference of the Yalta European Strategy, which is campaigning for Ukrainian membership of the EU.